February 27, 2006
Hi to all...
Here is another update starting where we left off before. Previously, we were anchored in Miami and had just set out a big blow with 40-knot winds. Well, things finally got better, and we were able to scout out the area and find a few things that were fun to do. We visited the Miami Yacht Club and had drinks and good conversation with some of the members. It is a very small club house and has a bar and a snack bar. The grounds are very simple and open onto the bay where we were anchored. We found the markets and did some last minute provisioning because we were going to head down into the Keys and didn't know where or how long it would be before we could be in a supermarket. We ended up staying in Miami for a week waiting for a good weather window, and then headed about 40 miles into the Keys; destination Key Largo.
On the way to Key Largo, we learned a lot about cruising in Florida waters....IT'S SHALLOW!!! Or down here they refer to it as "SKINNY WATER". For 40 miles, we never saw mor
e than 9 feet of water! I repeat…9 feet of water. In California, we would consider ourselves aground in 9 feet. Well, that’s about as deep as it gets around here. We made it to Key Largo and anchored in 5 feet of water. That might sound ok to non-boaters, but consider that our boat draws 4 feet so you can see why we were nervous. We stayed in Key Largo for 3 days and found that there wasn't really a lot to do unless you were into scuba diving or fishing. There was a great TIKI Bar on shore called Snook's that had a great happy hour so that kind of made up for the lack of sightseeing.
After 3 days in Key Largo, we decided that we would move down the Keys again and stop in Islamorada which is on the Upper Matecumbe Key (about another 35 miles). We found that the water was even shallower on this trip. We had to power through some 4-foot deep water which was unavoidable in the channel. We made it ok, but “Diamond Girl’s” keel is very clean now because of the “scraping” on the sandy bottom. We stayed in Islamorada for another 3 days and found that there was a little more to do. Not much, but a little more. The one thing we did notice is that there was still a lot of damage from Hurricane Wilma. There were a number of boats still sunk with only their masts sticking out of the water, and still a lot of boats that were blown up into the mangroves. Not a pretty sight.
While I'm describing the Keys, I should say that the Keys are very narrow strips of land that probably aren't more that 1/3 to a 1/2 mile wide. There is a highway (U.S. Hwy. 1) that runs in the middle of them and goes the entire length of all of the Keys. It ends in Key West. All of the little islands that make up the Keys are linked together by bridges. One of them is 7 miles long.
Also, we want try to explain how much of a team effort it is to navigate through some of the areas. While Bud is driving the boat and trying to stay within the marked channels, Elaine has the binoculars, charts and the cruising guides laid out and is studying them continuously. She spots all of the markers and checks the depths. It truly is a two-person job. Some of the marks, particularly in narrow channels, are very close and you just don't stray out of the channels because you will be aground instantly. You really have to pay attention and study the charts.
Enough of that! We left Islamorada and decided to make a run for Marathon which is on Vaca Key in the Lower Keys. It’s only about 45 miles from Key West. Marathon is a very interesting place. It's a little more picturesque than where we had come from but not a lot. However, the entire area is very boater friendly. When we got there, there were probably 150 boats anchored in the harbor with another 100 on moorings. There was still room for a few more. It's a holding area for boats that are waiting to go on to the Bahamas or Cuba. The Canadians can go to Cuba for a 6- month period of time, so there were a lot of Canadian boats there waiting for a weather window.
Marathon has a little of everything. There is a morning "Net" which is on the VHF radio where you can buy, sell, get information and help for just about everything. It is a fun
thing to do every morning. One of the marinas in town, The City Marina, has a dinghy dock, showers, water, laundromat, mail service, library/book exchange, pump-out service and bike storage all for $25.00 a week. A great service! And there is a fellow who has started a service called "The Smorgasboat". If you call him on the VHF radio, he will deliver the newspaper, gourmet coffee, fresh pastries, serve as a water taxi or just about anything else you might want or need. One of the things that we needed to get done on the boat was window screens. Bud finally made them himself. With those done, we needed to wait out another weather window in order to cross the Florida Bay and start heading up the West Coast of Florida. While waiting for the weather to improve we rented a car and drove to Key West for a day. We had been told by several people that Key West still had a lot of damage to boating facilities from Wilma. We spent the day and toured the Hemingway House and had a great time.
Something that we have found while we are out cruising is how easy we can make friends. We have met some really great people. While in Ft. Lauderdale, we met a couple who were in the slip next to ours who have been cruising for a year. We are planning on seeing them again this summer. While in Marathon, we met 3 other interesting couples. One is now in the Bahamas, and we will see them when passing through North Carolina. We also met a couple who have been out cruising for the last 14 years, and we traveled with them for the last 4 or 5 days. They are headed to Texas. It's amazing how you make friends, and then in a few days you leave and will possibly never see them again. It's sad, but on the other hand, you never know when you might cross paths again.
Well, after 3 weeks we finally left Marathon. We had a fairly good cro
ssing of the Florida Bay. It was a little choppy and we took a lot of water over the bow, but all in all it wasn't too bad. We stopped for a night in the Little Shark River which is a verrrrry remote spot surrounded by nothing but mangroves; surprisingly pretty and very quiet. We had a delightful night there and left first thing in the morning for another 40-mile run up to Indian Key, another very remote place. We did a little scouting out of all of the little islands in the area, again it was very quiet. We couldn't believe all the stars at night. With no city lights in the area, it was extremely dark so all the stars were brilliant. This was a very nice place to anchor.
After one night at Indian Key, we were off to Marco Island which is about another 30-mile trip. Boy, what a sharp contrast to the places we've been so far. Marco Island is a very upscale community with high rise condos and hotels everywhere. We anchored in Smokehouse Bay and were treated to a stunning view of multi-million dollar homes (much like Newport Harbor, CA). We have friends, Clay and Debi, who live on the island so we were anxious to see them. They were the couple who came to Ft. Lauderdale to help us unload “Diamond Girl” from the ship. We had a wonderful day sightseeing with them. We ended up staying at Marco Island for almost a week. It was hard to leave such a great place, but we had more to see and do. Off to Ft. Myers Beach.
After a 40-mile run up the West Coast, Ft. Myers Beach loomed ahead. With all the high rise buildings along the beach, it wasn't hard to spot. We rounded the sand spit that sticks out from the land and found a wonderful little harbor. This little town is on Estero Island and like all of the other little Keys, it’s only about 1/3 of a mile wide. There are a lot of eateries and t-shirt shops and a bunch of tourist traps. The beaches are great. They are white sand that is the consistency of powered sugar. We have only been here for a couple of days but have already decided that this could be another place that we should revisit.
I think that brings you up to date so far. We will be here for a couple more days, and then we will be off to rendezvous with some friends from Ventura, California who we haven't seen for a number of years. They now live in Punta Gorda, FL. We can't wait to see them!
Hi to all...
Here is another update starting where we left off before. Previously, we were anchored in Miami and had just set out a big blow with 40-knot winds. Well, things finally got better, and we were able to scout out the area and find a few things that were fun to do. We visited the Miami Yacht Club and had drinks and good conversation with some of the members. It is a very small club house and has a bar and a snack bar. The grounds are very simple and open onto the bay where we were anchored. We found the markets and did some last minute provisioning because we were going to head down into the Keys and didn't know where or how long it would be before we could be in a supermarket. We ended up staying in Miami for a week waiting for a good weather window, and then headed about 40 miles into the Keys; destination Key Largo.
On the way to Key Largo, we learned a lot about cruising in Florida waters....IT'S SHALLOW!!! Or down here they refer to it as "SKINNY WATER". For 40 miles, we never saw mor
e than 9 feet of water! I repeat…9 feet of water. In California, we would consider ourselves aground in 9 feet. Well, that’s about as deep as it gets around here. We made it to Key Largo and anchored in 5 feet of water. That might sound ok to non-boaters, but consider that our boat draws 4 feet so you can see why we were nervous. We stayed in Key Largo for 3 days and found that there wasn't really a lot to do unless you were into scuba diving or fishing. There was a great TIKI Bar on shore called Snook's that had a great happy hour so that kind of made up for the lack of sightseeing.After 3 days in Key Largo, we decided that we would move down the Keys again and stop in Islamorada which is on the Upper Matecumbe Key (about another 35 miles). We found that the water was even shallower on this trip. We had to power through some 4-foot deep water which was unavoidable in the channel. We made it ok, but “Diamond Girl’s” keel is very clean now because of the “scraping” on the sandy bottom. We stayed in Islamorada for another 3 days and found that there was a little more to do. Not much, but a little more. The one thing we did notice is that there was still a lot of damage from Hurricane Wilma. There were a number of boats still sunk with only their masts sticking out of the water, and still a lot of boats that were blown up into the mangroves. Not a pretty sight.
While I'm describing the Keys, I should say that the Keys are very narrow strips of land that probably aren't more that 1/3 to a 1/2 mile wide. There is a highway (U.S. Hwy. 1) that runs in the middle of them and goes the entire length of all of the Keys. It ends in Key West. All of the little islands that make up the Keys are linked together by bridges. One of them is 7 miles long.
Also, we want try to explain how much of a team effort it is to navigate through some of the areas. While Bud is driving the boat and trying to stay within the marked channels, Elaine has the binoculars, charts and the cruising guides laid out and is studying them continuously. She spots all of the markers and checks the depths. It truly is a two-person job. Some of the marks, particularly in narrow channels, are very close and you just don't stray out of the channels because you will be aground instantly. You really have to pay attention and study the charts.
Enough of that! We left Islamorada and decided to make a run for Marathon which is on Vaca Key in the Lower Keys. It’s only about 45 miles from Key West. Marathon is a very interesting place. It's a little more picturesque than where we had come from but not a lot. However, the entire area is very boater friendly. When we got there, there were probably 150 boats anchored in the harbor with another 100 on moorings. There was still room for a few more. It's a holding area for boats that are waiting to go on to the Bahamas or Cuba. The Canadians can go to Cuba for a 6- month period of time, so there were a lot of Canadian boats there waiting for a weather window.
Marathon has a little of everything. There is a morning "Net" which is on the VHF radio where you can buy, sell, get information and help for just about everything. It is a fun
thing to do every morning. One of the marinas in town, The City Marina, has a dinghy dock, showers, water, laundromat, mail service, library/book exchange, pump-out service and bike storage all for $25.00 a week. A great service! And there is a fellow who has started a service called "The Smorgasboat". If you call him on the VHF radio, he will deliver the newspaper, gourmet coffee, fresh pastries, serve as a water taxi or just about anything else you might want or need. One of the things that we needed to get done on the boat was window screens. Bud finally made them himself. With those done, we needed to wait out another weather window in order to cross the Florida Bay and start heading up the West Coast of Florida. While waiting for the weather to improve we rented a car and drove to Key West for a day. We had been told by several people that Key West still had a lot of damage to boating facilities from Wilma. We spent the day and toured the Hemingway House and had a great time.Something that we have found while we are out cruising is how easy we can make friends. We have met some really great people. While in Ft. Lauderdale, we met a couple who were in the slip next to ours who have been cruising for a year. We are planning on seeing them again this summer. While in Marathon, we met 3 other interesting couples. One is now in the Bahamas, and we will see them when passing through North Carolina. We also met a couple who have been out cruising for the last 14 years, and we traveled with them for the last 4 or 5 days. They are headed to Texas. It's amazing how you make friends, and then in a few days you leave and will possibly never see them again. It's sad, but on the other hand, you never know when you might cross paths again.
Well, after 3 weeks we finally left Marathon. We had a fairly good cro
ssing of the Florida Bay. It was a little choppy and we took a lot of water over the bow, but all in all it wasn't too bad. We stopped for a night in the Little Shark River which is a verrrrry remote spot surrounded by nothing but mangroves; surprisingly pretty and very quiet. We had a delightful night there and left first thing in the morning for another 40-mile run up to Indian Key, another very remote place. We did a little scouting out of all of the little islands in the area, again it was very quiet. We couldn't believe all the stars at night. With no city lights in the area, it was extremely dark so all the stars were brilliant. This was a very nice place to anchor.After one night at Indian Key, we were off to Marco Island which is about another 30-mile trip. Boy, what a sharp contrast to the places we've been so far. Marco Island is a very upscale community with high rise condos and hotels everywhere. We anchored in Smokehouse Bay and were treated to a stunning view of multi-million dollar homes (much like Newport Harbor, CA). We have friends, Clay and Debi, who live on the island so we were anxious to see them. They were the couple who came to Ft. Lauderdale to help us unload “Diamond Girl” from the ship. We had a wonderful day sightseeing with them. We ended up staying at Marco Island for almost a week. It was hard to leave such a great place, but we had more to see and do. Off to Ft. Myers Beach.
After a 40-mile run up the West Coast, Ft. Myers Beach loomed ahead. With all the high rise buildings along the beach, it wasn't hard to spot. We rounded the sand spit that sticks out from the land and found a wonderful little harbor. This little town is on Estero Island and like all of the other little Keys, it’s only about 1/3 of a mile wide. There are a lot of eateries and t-shirt shops and a bunch of tourist traps. The beaches are great. They are white sand that is the consistency of powered sugar. We have only been here for a couple of days but have already decided that this could be another place that we should revisit.
I think that brings you up to date so far. We will be here for a couple more days, and then we will be off to rendezvous with some friends from Ventura, California who we haven't seen for a number of years. They now live in Punta Gorda, FL. We can't wait to see them!
